Yes, I know.

Wonder if any team is interested in a hitter that is on pace for 185 hits and 40 doubles despite a slow start. Nah just pick up Chris Duncan. He is tall and white so he can do the same.

Exactly.

In fact, that's a Hal McRae teaching.

McRae was of the 'grip and rip' school. He was a guy that taught you to look for the first pitch you can hit and try to hit hard whereever it is pitched. I disagreed vehemently with his approach, but it's an undeniably accepted 'old school' method.

McGwire teaches hitters to take a strike, work the count and attempt to drive the ball back up the middle. His idea is that you make the pitcher come to you. This is the approach that I generally favor.

The problem is that it's just not going to work for Brendan Ryan. He's the most hyper ballplayer I've ever seen. His entire game is frenetic and wired. He's not going to be able to take a strike and still feel comfortable up there. McRae's approach worked far better for him than McGwire's would.

Remember -- Mark McGwire is a rookie hitting coach himself. He's going to have some bumps along the way here. The guys that are expanding their zones and getting themselves out, that's not on McGwire; it's precisely the opposite of what he teaches. However, Brendan Ryan's struggles do lay in large part on McGwires shoulders. I'm not blaming him, I'm simply saying that his 'core' teachings are not compatible with Ryan's personality. Sometimes players and coaches are just a poor fit for each other.

As time goes by, I think McGwire will adjust and adapt as a hitting coach and a guy like Ryan won't be such a difficult case for him, but right now McGwire is doing Ryan far more harm than good.

Told y'all....

The Reds are a very good ballclub.

Dusty Baker's still a damn moron, but that's a good team.

What a sick bunch of baseball players...they look lathargic and uninterested.
Kyle L. needed to pickup his team last night and he fell flat on his face.
Losh is making me feel sick every time he takes the mound, much like every time Ryan handles a bat

Wonder if their is something going on in the clubhouse we don't know about?

I hope it involves Brendan Ryan getting a blanket party.

Lohse is who he's always been: a fifth starter. You can't expect him to pick up the team. He's paid like someone who should, but he's not capable of doing it.

The team as a whole seems listless and lacking in confidence right now.

And thats not a Larrussa team at all. We can bitch about his micromanaging and players he loves way past when the rest of us figured out they were done but, his teams usually play hard and don't look like they have lately. Makes me think something is up in the locker room.

Greene starts for Ryan today.

Sadly Lohse is getting badly exposed with the mediocre stuff he has always had. Contract year with Duncan unfortunately lead to a decent contract with the team that usually spits that type out into FA.

Lohse doesn't have mediocre stuff, nor does he have a #5 starter ceiling.

Lohse has better stuff than Piniero had, without question. When Lohse is on, his movement and his arsenal actually make him quite formidable.

Lohse can be a solid #4 or a fringe #3 when he has his head on right. Unfortunately, he's feeling for his stuff and guiding it rather than throwing it. Once you start guiding your pitches, they'll flatten out and/or elevate.

He's in his own head right now. If I were Duncan, I'd send him out there for his next start with orders to lean heavily, I'm talking 90% of his pitches, on his 2-seamer.

Tell him to just pound the shit out of the lower half of the zone with that pitch. Throw it until you get a feel for it. If you get shelled, so what.

Since he can't spot his heat right now, he's relying on his breaking stuff and his breaking stuff isn't going well either. As a consequence, he's not improving anywhere. He's just a mess out there.

Get the fastball right and a lot of things will fall into place. Pitching at the major league level follows your fastball. I don't care if you have Randy Johnson's slider and Santana's changeup, it's the heat that sets up everything. Until he is able to control his fastball, the rest of it is immaterial.

I never said he was a #5. #4 or a well coached #3 in the NL is often mediocre stuff.

Lopez we need you,

I've never been high on Lohse. He has a career 4.70 ERA and a 4.52 FIP. He had a career year in '08. I don't think that performance is really repeatable.

It's nice to think that Lohse could consistently spot his fastball if he worked on it, but it's like saying that Tiger should be able to hit 80% of his fairways with his driver.